


Clockworks and Squiggles

by LizRambler



Series: Sleepovers [16]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:34:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25060972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizRambler/pseuds/LizRambler
Summary: At a critical point in the Tardis development, the Doctor and Rose need to save the day, leaving Donna alone with the sentient almost Time Machine.
Relationships: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor & Donna Noble, Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Series: Sleepovers [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1531835
Comments: 50
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

Donna shook her head. 

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Got fleas?” 

“Haha Gramps, no,” she grumbled, pouring hot coffee into both of their cups. “Just a sort of tickle in my ear. Feels like someone whispering.”

Gramps lowered his newspaper to regard her with his bright blue eyes. He’s put on a stone since moving in with her. The extra weight suited him, he was healthy. His skin was a lot less like old butcher paper and now soft, smoothing out all but the deepest laugh lines. His wrinkles appeared now as he gave her a once over. “You’re not reverting?”

The worried tone was gratifying. Donna had been created (recreated) in this universe because her consciousness had been copied when the Doctor had had his meta crisis and slapped into the body of this universe’s Donna Noble. She had all of the other woman’s memories stored like old books collecting dust in dark corners. Wilf had been *that* Donna’s grandfather. They had adopted one another because well, she liked to think they needed one another. She thought about it a lot imagining the life her original self was having with her original grandfather and all her amazing memories removed. He was worried that those memories might take over reverting her back to this Universe’s Donna, his Donna…

“Nah,” she barked, keeping it light to disguise her own worry. It was never good to hear voices no matter what universe you were in. “Sorry old man, you’re stuck with this version. Bacon?”

He snorted. “You trying to cook me into an early grave? Yes. Two rashers and not a bit more.”

“Four it is!” Donna said, turning to the hob, “off today?”

“In late today. Jackie’s got a doctor’s appointment for Tony,” he said surreptitiously adding more sugar to his coffee. “She’s letting me do the lunch crowd. Think I’ll make a stew.”

“It’s a thousand degrees out,” Donna glanced out the window at the heat haze. “London was never this hot back home.”

“Yeah, well, good thing your posh alien friend added that air conditioning thing or I’d melt clean through this fancy floor and drop into some rich woman’s lap.” He picked his paper back up, shaking it out. “Then what will you do when she wants to keep me?”

“Easy, get written into your will, and do you both in to collect the money…” Donna quipped.  
“As if I’d be stupid enough to put you in my will without a ‘mysterious death clause.’”

They grinned. Donna was living her best life. She flipped the bacon.

An hour later, she was dressed in the loosest shortest skirt that was still professional with a blue silk short sleeve blouse heading up the stairs to the Doctor’s lab. As she made it up the air shifted from barely cooled to slightly chilly. She shook her head again as the feeling that people were in the next room talking about her. Shrugging it off, she kept going until she reached the Doctor’s lab. The door slid open as she approached. 

“Morning, Donna!” 

“How do you always know?” She asked stepping into the messy den that the Doctor inhabited. 

The Tardis was a bright healthy pinky-orange. Branches of coral clung to the ceiling and dripped back down. The thick earthy scent of growing Tardis, electronics, and tea permeated the room. A stack of reports on her desk was early as high as his hair today. The bank of computers was whirling and working away. She plopped a travel mug of hot tea onto the small table he kept clear for food before kicking off her heels and dropping into her seat at the desk. She booted up her laptop.

She glanced over to see what he was up to and couldn’t see him at all. “Where are you?”

“Hm?” His voice drifted back from somewhere behind a bookcase. “Oh...on the other side of the coral. Since we’re bonded, I’m using her to tap into the bond with Rose and amplify it.”

“Why?” She opened her own mug of tea and pulled the bag out before it over-brewed. She wasn’t exactly hungry but she had picked up a bag of nibbles since the Doctor often forgot to eat when he was working on projects. Not eating and drinking enough aggravated his migraines. “Will that hurt your fragile Time Lord brains?”

That got him to appear. He popped out of nowhere. Dressed in a checked blue suit today, he looked a lot like a game show host in a strip club. She’d tell him that but she was riding high on her Time Lord slam. She grinned. He rolled his eyes. Taking the tea, he opened his hand for the sugar packets. Reluctantly, she forked over one. He snapped and motioned for her to give him more. She gave him one more packet. He pouted. Taking three more packets out of his pocket, he loaded up before downing half of it. He started sniffing around her pastry bag. 

“Nope,” he said, popping the ‘p.’ “It’s not strenuous. It’s the opposite. The Tardis takes on a lot of the mental load. It’s protecting my ‘fragile Time Lord brains,’” he murmured, dripping it in the appropriate amount of disdain. “She’s in a meeting. Rose. Rose is in a meeting. It’s boring.”

“So you were successful then,” Donna made an impressed face before splitting a chocolate croissant with him. “Again...why? You don’t want to include the Tardis in your freaky weird alien se-”

He slapped a hand over her mouth. “No. No, no, no, no. Right now we have a very short distance range. I’m always aware of her but not in a way that’s useful. If we could both through the Tardis, if Rose and I are separated and she needs me, the Tardis can help me find her or get a message from her. Besides, it’s good practice for testing how the bonds are setting.” The croissant disappeared and he took a muffin out of the bag, sniffed it, and took a big bite. 

“That’s what you’re doing today? Spying on Rose in meetings? Can she tell you’re doing it? Or are you being creepy?” She spun to log into her computer and started entering all her passwords.

“She...wouldn’t care. And no, that’s not all I’m doing today. I’m running several experiments on an alternative crystal fuel since we got a few samples from that ship they unearthed in Georgia. While that’s running, I’ve some other tests running on myself.” Nervously, he bounded away from her to check on his experiments.

“Doctor,” she called.

He kept moving like a hummingbird. 

“DOCTOR,” she shouted.

He stilled, spinning on one bright blue chuck to regard her. “Yes?”

“Are you okay?” She asked softly. 

“Course, I’m always…”

Donna arched her brows. “Yeah? Because you suffer from migraines. Have a very weird case of multiple personality disorder, and you spent a day unconscious from overexerting yourself. You’re not really the best judge of ‘okay.’”

The Doctor drifted closer to her, tugging on his ear and scratching at his jawline seconds later. “I’m interesting, unique, not insane, not unstable. The tests are genetic. Seeing what makes me, me. Testing for fertility. Testing for what genetic disorders my new form might be prone to compare to my old. Making comparisons between a full Gallifreyan body versus the hybrid so you and Rose can have an idea of what I need if I ever need something. Trying to avoid murder attempts by my best friend.” He gave her a look.

Donna knew he was making a good point. She had even managed to get down to the shooting range for some practice. She had been sent away with a water gun to practice with. But all she heard was ‘fertility.’ “Are you planning on having kids? You haven’t even proposed yet. Bit of a horse before the cart situation if you ask me.”

Uncomfortable, he shifted a few times, mouth working but no sound coming out. The Doctor walked back over to the coral. He touched the surface. “It’s...not the timing is… I have a ring. Complicated ring… have it. I think it’s…”

“Nothing’s that complicated.”

“I wanted to wait until after the erm, the beach, and make sure she…” He ran a hand down his face. 

“Oh, this is about the other one… She doesn’t want him anymore,” Donna scoffed. 

“He’s me.” 

“He was you. You’re you now. She already bonded with you in your weird freaky alien way. What’s the big deal about the dress and the cake and standing up in front of family? Don’t you want that?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah just wanted to wait until the anniversary was over…” Several sheets of paper shot out of an oddly upgraded dot matrix printer, interrupting whatever he was about to say. “Ooooh, results!” 

Gathering up the paper, he scanned it. “Hm.”

“Good hm?” Donna asked, spinning to face her work. He was done sharing for the day, she could tell. At least he had a ring. That was progress. Rose had a dress. The Doctor had a ring. Now all they needed was one of them to propose. She scanned the first file. It was on the Zygon integration program. She keyed in the information, adding the Doctor’s notes to the bottom. It took her a few seconds to decipher them since they were written on a napkin and stapled to the notes section. His spidery scrawl was at least easy to read and she finished the file and was starting on a second one before she realized he hadn’t answered her. “Doctor?”

“Hm?”

“Oh, you are impossible today!” Donna huffed. 

She shook her head. The whispers were back. The Doctor cocked his head. Turning to the Tardis, he beamed. “Yes, you are!” He bounded over to her, shoving the papers into his pockets. “Yes, I suppose…” He slipped into his own musical language.   
Donna paused. “She’s talking?”

“Yep, she’s entered a new phase! I’ll have to stay here all night! Good, I wanted to finish running Rose’s tests and yours,” he rambled on for a minute about controls and paradoxes and gene sequencing. 

Standing up, she walked over to the bank of computers and noticed a familiar purple paddle brush. “Is that Rose’s hairbrush?” Beside it was a silver-handled comb and… “Doctor, is that my hairbrush?”

His eyebrows arched. “Is it?” he squeaked. “So, it is.”

“What. Are. You. Doing. With. My. Hairbrush?”

Nervously, he tugged at his collar. “I just told you. I’m running genetic testing on me, Rose, you and erm, Tony.” His eyes flicked to the table full of Petri dishes, and test tubes then back to her.

“You can’t steal peoples’ things and use them to run tests. It’s illegal.” Patiently, she reached out and took her hairbrush. 

The Doctor winced. “No, no, no, I might need another hair or two for the control experiment…”

“I ought to whack you with it, you Martian. Why do you want to run genetic tests on me for anyway? I’m not a meta crisis. I’m normal.”

“I know! You’re so wonderfully, beautifully normal! You’re the control! I want to compare you to Me. And Tony to Rose since he’s a blood relative...and also very normal.” He beamed. “You’re the closest thing I have to a relative to make relative comparisons about my human bits.”

“Doctor, never mention your human bits to me again,” she growled.

He giggled and twitched the hairbrush out of her hands. It disappeared into one of his pockets. “Besides the comparisons, I wanted to run a few other tests to see if bonding with a Tardis made any changes to you, physically or mentally. Want to stay overnight here with me?” 

“No. I’ve dinner with Harry from R&D.” 

The Doctor huffed out a breath. “Well, that’s-that’s never going to go anywhere… This will be fun!”

Donna spun her chair back around and went back to typing. She heard him puttering around behind her. She ignored him. The whispering started up again. Donna ignored that too, concentrating on getting as many of their cases transcribed as possible before end of day. That way, he wouldn’t have an excuse to make her break her date. The music kicked on as he took the hint and left her to it. At least it was a modern band today. It was a lot easier to concentrate when you weren’t distracted by alternate lyrics.

The Doctor settled against the Tardis, his back leaning on her to keep contact. The energy between them was snapping, crackling, and popping? No, that was Rice Krispies? Did they have that cereal here? He stuffed his hand into his left pocket. He pulled out the test results to peruse. He also dug deeper and pulled out the ring. Flipping it open, he wondered at this human ritual and its import. He was all for dancing and cake and kissing Rose in front of people. He just wanted to give her a full year to let the other version of him free. In the facets of the blue stone, he saw old Big Ears and Leather Jacket staring back at him. Maybe Rose would never let go of the other versions of himself. Maybe that was okay.

The Tardis pulsed a warm feeling of love through him. She sent him a few possible timelines for tonight. They were wispy insubstantial things. A hint of dread mixed liberally into a few of them. One thing the Tardis knew for sure: Donna wasn’t going on her date. He blew a raspberry. She wasn’t going to like that at all. 

The Tardis suggested they try to link to Rose again. The Doctor obliged, pausing when Donna shook her head. She’d been doing that a lot today. He wondered if she might be getting an ear infection? He also wondered if he could risk scanning her without having his sonic shoved forcibly up his--Amusement flooded him. The Tardis’ version of a laugh echoed. Donna shook her head again. Hm. He pulled the sonic. The Tardis called his attention back to the exercise they were in the middle of. He lowered the sonic, and his mental shields. Closing his eyes, he focused on the light that was Rose. The Tardis link to Rose opened too, redoubling the link. 

Rose’s presence was antsy. He got glimpses of her emotions. She was hungry. She was annoyed. She was three floors down and seven offices over: Kate Stewart’s office. Why would she be annoyed at Kate? The Doctor let the Tardis bolster the link. He leaned on her. Shapes fluttered in and out. Kate was standing over her desk, hands-on a map gesticulating. It faded. Rose’s hands faded in, pointing at the same map. Her anxiety ratcheted up. 

“Let’s try and get noticed,” he murmured to the Tardis in Gallifreyan, trying not to disturb Donna.

They worked together to push the feeling of a hug through the link. Rose’s mind stilled. Jackpot! He got a hint of amusement than a shove out of her mind. He felt the link fade out, gentled by the Tardis. Sweat beaded on his brow. “Wow. Good job!”

Sparkling amusement flooded him. 

Donna squirmed. The Doctor cocked his head, smelling a correlation. In Gallifreyan, he asked the Tardis, “Can she hear you?” He bolstered it with the timeline signature of Donna. The Tardis was an interdimensional being, names were iffy with her. The Tardis thought about it on four levels. A positive flash of cerulean blue drifted through his mind. “Well, that’s...not supposed to happen, is it?” The Tardis didn’t answer shifting into a pleasant neutral as she stretched backward, forwards, and sideways in time.

Staying lightly linked with her in case she needed him, the Doctor scanned his test results. Pleased, he saw all the standard chemical markers of a Time Lord brain. His organ functions were better than human in most areas, less than Time Lord but not abysmally so. And...fertile. Sperm count was good. Motility was… impressive. “Wow,” he murmured, “Take that Pythia, you old goat.”

“Notepad!” 

Donna launched one at his head. He caught it. Scribbling several notes, he began writing a care and feeding guide for his body. He saw a few vitamin deficiencies in the blood work he had run concurrently with the gene mapping that might help lessen the migraines if he added supplements. He was on page ten when Rose burst into the lab.

“We’ve got to go,” she said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Date Interrupted. Adventure!

“No.”

“No?” Rose arched a brow. “You never say no.”

“I say ‘no’ all the time. No, I would not like Jackie to cut my hair. No, I would not like to go to a boring administrative meeting on why my department uses up all the bananas. No thank you, I’ve had enough tea-wait, no that last one's a lie. Love tea.” The Doctor stood up, tossing a notebook to Donna. 

“There’s a first contact happening at the Caspian Sea. A large group of people who look like crosses between dinosaurs and sea monsters is standing on the shore waving guns at UNIT. We need to get there and start the negotiations,” Rose explained, hoping the prospect of first contact would goad him into going. She was hurt he didn’t want to adventure with her. She shoved it down, hiding it under her professional veneer to cover.

He hissed. “Oh, that is good! Silurians probably. They’re not aliens.”

“Not aliens?” Donna asked, dropping the notebook to the table. 

He turned to regard her. “Only if you think people from Birmingham are aliens. Indigenous species, they’re Earthlings! They predate you, erm, us by ten thousand years give or take some alternative history. They’re clever and mostly harmless.” 

Rose watched him twitch. “Right, so let’s go negotiate.”

“I can’t,” the Doctor responded, gritting his teeth. “No, sorry.” His eyes flicked to the Tardis coral.

“Why not? You’ve just been running tests all day. We don’t even have any paperwork to hide behind,” Donna asked, catching Rose’s eyes.

“I-I just told you, the Tardis needs me here overnight. She is entering a new growth phase. I have to be here to keep her company.” The Doctor stepped back and closer to the Tardis. 

Rose had shoved him out earlier when he was poking around while she tried to explain why they needed to shoot less and negotiate more with other species. Was this a retaliation? No, he would never. She relaxed into his link feeling his mix of anticipation for adventure and anxiety for the Tardis. 

“They’re a great species,” he said mournfully. “Take your UNO cards. Don’t show any hostility. Should be fine.”

“Don’t you want to come?” 

“Yes,” he chirruped, “very much. But the Tardis needs a pilot nearby for the next,” he paused to converse with the Tardis, “sixteen hours and Donna has a date. Could your mum bring Tony over?”

Rose let out a breath. “If we let her know that an earlier incarnation of you bonded her baby boy to a time-traveling plant, how do you think she’ll react?”

He blanched. “Erm…I don’t suppose ‘delighted’ is on the table? No?”

Rose arched a brow. The Doctor touched his face as if remembering a slap from two lifetimes ago. Considering the way his mind worked, he probably was. She reached out and touched his cheek. He leaned into her. The buzz of his active mind tickled her fingers.

Donna’s shoulders slumped and she let out an alien swear. “Right, go. I’ll call Harry.”

Rose caught her eye. Donna and Harry had kept making dates and having to break them because of Rose or the Doctor or Wilf. She couldn’t let her do it again. They had no right monopolizing Donna’s time. “No, I can handle it. We have a new translation matrix. It’s not the first time I’ve saved the world on my own. Besides, we can video conference…” 

Donna was shaking her head. “No. You need the skinny alien more than I need a night out.”

Rose could taste the redhead's disappointment. “Oh, Donna no. You can’t keep putting him off. You’re allowed to have a life outside of us.”

Donna’s eyes were a bit watery. “No, it’s fine. Go save the world. Without me.”

“Aw, I want to bring Donna. Call your mum…” The Doctor pouted. “And what’s his name. Bring him. He’s going to have to get used to saving the world sooner or later. It’s your job. Donna Noble Defender of the Alt Verse.”

Donna grimaced. “No. No way. You’ll chase him off.”

“Me?” the Doctor asked, face full of innocence. “What do I do? I’m a perfect gentleman.”

“You threw a banana at his team last time…”

“Did they or did they not recommend crossing bananas with pears? They’re addled. Fine! Don’t go with us. But don’t cancel your date. Bring him up here,” the Doctor offered. “There’s nothing he’d understand up here. Pears,” he grumbled. “And his clearance is high--isn’t it?” he asked, voice pitching way up. 

Rose and Donna shared a look. The Doctor had no idea who Harry was, not really. Donna had mentioned him a lot, multiple times a day in fact. The Doctor just wasn’t interested in him for some reason. Rose had even met him and worked with the big boisterous man on several early missions during the Dimension Cannon research. He was a good guy. Donna deserved a nice night out. Rose bit her lip. Things usually ended with less blood when the Doctor translated. The expectation of explosions tended to go up...but the bloodshed went way down. And when they were together bloodshed and explosions went way down and sometimes didn’t happen at all. Rose wanted a win to show her peaceful way was better.

And adventures were more fun with the Doctor.

“I can handle it.”

“Rose!” The Doctor grumbled, “It’ll be fine. Donna and what’s-his-face can have a lovely dinner up here. I’ll pay. Least I can do. The Tardis will even oblige with a soft romantic glow.” He slapped his black card down on his food table.

The Tardis put out a gentle orangey glow. Donna walked over to pat the coral. “It’s fine, Rose. Everyone on the research floor is dying to get in here, steal the research. I’m sure Harry won’t mind.”  
“Right, better lock everything down. One tic, two tics,” he vanished behind the coral. Rose saw him lock down a few laptops and sonic the bank of computers. He pointed at the notebook, “your eyes only, Donna.”

“I will make it up to you, Donna.” Rose hugged the older woman. “We’re going to have to use the hoppers to get there if we want to be first.”

“Oooh, dangerous,” the Doctor cooed. 

“What do I do?” Donna asked, pointing at the coral.

“Right! Right, stay in this room. Touch the coral. You might sense things from her. There are four bags of nutrient-rich mixes on the bookshelf. If she stops glowing, use the first bag. If she asks, the second bag. Ignore the other two. The measuring cups are there too. Thanks, Donna! I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Donna hugged him. “Yeah, yeah, go. And next time I get to go on the adventure, yeah?”

“Yeah, yes, yep, as soon as Rose tells Jackie that Tony would make an excellent Tardis babysitter.” He gave Rose a wink.

“Never going to happen,” Rose chirped.

Donna stood in the center of the empty lab. She pulled out her phone. “Hiya Harry, a small change in plans. Nah, not canceling. Change of venue. Yeah, I’m in the Doctor’s lab.”

“Really?” Harry’s voice was rich with interest. “In Dr. Jeckyl’s lab? Or is it Doctor Frankenstein? He’s a bit mad, your boss. Has he got you stitching banana peels together?”

“Yeah as if, he needs me to stay here in the lab overnight.” Donna hugged her elbow.

“Is that time and a half?” Harry asked, tone staying playful. Maybe this would be alright. “Donna, I’m not sure if that’s even legal.”

“He’s got me taking care of a few experiments for him. You’d like him if you got to know him. Honestly, I’m integral to a few of these things. He’s lost without me,” Donna bragged.

“That I believe.”

“Stop, anyhow, want to have dinner with me up here in the lion’s den? He’s lent me his credit card,” She asked, hoping she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt. Not a single date since Lee in that Library and he was imaginary. Donna was not counting Lance. “How do you feel about surf and turf?”

A soft warm chuckle reached her ears. “Yeah, why not get us the lot? Desserts, a bottle of wine? What time do you want me to meet you?”

“Same as planned, seven at the bottom of the stairs. No one but Rose and me have clearance to be in his lab.”

“Oh, well, doesn’t that make me feel special! I’ll see you tonight.”

Donna hung up and immediately called Gramps. “Before you leave, can you grab the dress on the hanger in my room and my makeup bag?”

Gramps sounded chipper. “Sure, darling… do you need fancy shoes?”

“Yeah, pick something strappy,” Donna smirked feeling a light sparkling amusement in the air.

“Sounds like someone has a date. I’ll get your perfume as well.” 

“You’re a star!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your lovely messages. I read every one and it means a lot. My real life is a mess. This is where I go to get away and have fun. I'm glad I can entertain you! You are all super wonderful.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilf is smart. Rose and Kate do not like one another.

The hoppers’ had green for ‘Go’ buttons instead of ‘Yellow’ for… a sad reminder that he had once been stupid enough to try and send Rose away for her own protection. They were always, always, always safest/best together. A team. He was part of a team. He was on Rose’s team. Still, he let her put her own hopper on, not wanting to remind her of his previous self’s thickness.

Rose settled the button around her neck. She pulled out her phone and hit a button. “Sasha, we’re good to go.” 

The Doctor caught her hand as the displacement wave escaped the green button. No sense in taking chances. Rose grinned as they hopped. The strange pull behind his navel reminded him forcibly of a portkey. He closed his eyes, opening them when the feeling dissipated. They were on the shore of the Caspian Sea. There was a city off to the left and a large rocky coastline. “Are we in Baku?” he asked, spinning to see the UNIT trucks riding up then spun back around to see the submersible out in the bright blue waves. Salt air hit him like a hot wet blanket. Without the breeze off the water, it would be at least 37 degrees out here. The sun was baking the rocks. Those poor Silurians! “Wow, sauna out here, eh, Rose?”

Rose’s eyes were on the rocky shore. Sure enough-mental groan for the unintended pun-a tall Aquatic Silurian was climbing up the rocks holding a heat gun. “Is that a Silurian?”

“Yep,” he responded, popping the ‘p’. “Brigadier called them ‘Sea Devils’ but they always looked a bit like amphibious chickens to me.”

Rose glanced back at him. “It’s the eyes… Bit chicken-y. Are they friendly?”

The Doctor shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. “No idea. Not my universe, Rose. They were in the… they could be in the before… Prime Universe. I met them a few times. Usually ended in disaster, unfortunately. Let’s see if we can bang our head against this particular amphibious wall and get better results.” 

He strode forward. A voice called him back. “Not so fast, Doctor.”

Beaming he spun on his heel to face Kate Stewart. Tall, lean, blonde, and imposing, she was the daughter of his very best friend-before Rose and Donna of course-the Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. “Hallo Kate!”

“It’s Captain Stewart, Doctor, for heaven’s sake, show little of decorum, will you?” 

Aw, she was adorable! Just like her Dad with wanting respect and deference...maybe a salute? He glanced at Rose to share his enthusiasm. Rose looked put out. Kate arched a brow. Rose arched one back. The Doctor arched both brows in confusion. The leaders squared off.

“The Doctor says they’re highly intelligent and indigenous. We’re going to go down and open negotiations. Set up a perimeter. No one in or out. No guns pointed at anyone until we know they’re hostile.”

“Agent Tyler, with all due respect, our orders were to secure the beach and eradicate any threats presented. Azerbaijan's government is nervous. Baku is in the middle of its annual jazz festival. There are thousands of tourists less than a mile from here. And my sergeant says those things are armed with some sort of energy weapon. I won’t risk lives.” Kate handed her binoculars to the Doctor.

“Jazz festival?” 

“After,” Rose said, keeping her eyes on Kate. 

He took Kate’s binoculars, centering them on the Silurian he’d seen earlier. “Oh, he’s brought fourteen friends, all armed.” He made a face. “We should have brought two decks of cards.” He handed the binoculars back as the soldiers spread out and aimed their weapons at the species that predated them. “Maybe four decks of cards…”

Donna was climbing the walls. The stack of files she had been transcribing was done. She had filed them plus several other older stacks of files. Once that was done, she had made a supply order. She needed sticky notes, notebooks-they kept vanishing, envelopes-the large manilla ones, pens-the Doctor ate them she swore, paperclips-those the Doctor kept using in things, staples, a stapler-the Doctor had dismantled the last three, a new tin of tea bags for late nights as well as creamer, biscuits, and sugar. Order done, Donna had resorted to cleaning. Her desk gleamed with fresh polish. She puffed hair out of her eyes.

The Tardis had brightened her glow considerably when Donna began cleaning. “You like a bit of dusting?” Donna had asked the coral, wiping down a few dusty branches. A sparkling pink feeling made her smile. Donna had spritzed her down with the water the Doctor had in an ancient crystal cut perfume bottle with a bulb spray thingee. The orangey-pink surface glittered. Donna also topped off her growing medium and gave the floor a quick sweep. 

It was only 01:30. Donna blew raspberries. “I should make more money,” she told the Tardis. “I am that efficient.”

Faced with checking her email for the zillionth time, she walked over to the Doctor’s desk. She gathered all his notes. He had an old fashioned receipt holder full of random bits of paper, crisp packets, pastry bag remnants, gum wrappers, and a takeaway menu. She took all the notes, laid them flat to read. Most of it was Doctor-y nonsense but she faithfully transcribed the numbers, letters, and clockwork squiggles into the back of his latest notebook. Any notes that pertained to cases got added to the case notes of the digital file then filed with the hard copy. The nonsense papers were put in an envelope and stashed in his only unlocked drawer.

She swept up the floor on his side and behind the coral collecting and collating more of his nonsense. “I am gonna kill him. This is secretarial abuse!” Notes were everywhere! Notes on the floor behind the Tardis coral. Notes in the jar with the sugar packets. There was one even stuck to the kettle. She left any that were instructions for using what they were stuck to and the rest got filed. He was either going to be thrilled or annoyed by her clearing up. 

Just as she had opened the drawer that was supposed to have printer paper to find a tri-colored guinea pig happily munching on hay, she heard her grandad calling, “Sweetheart, you never answered your phone, so Pete let me up.” Her grandad would be on a first name basis with the boss. Donna couldn’t get comfortable enough to call Rose’s dad Pete yet.

“Then how did you get in here? The lock is insane and has four rotating passcodes.”

“Yeah, that was a bit of a head scratcher. I typed in the coordinates he taught me in case of an emergency. Figured it might be for his fancy door. Think Pete gave me level 1 security clearance as well. Said it would be easier on everyone and I don’t understand a lick of this SciFi stuff so… Brought your dress and pretty things. Tea too.” Wilf wandered around the lab, dropping a tray with a sandwich, crisps, and an apple onto the Doctor’s food table. He hung her clothes up on a hook she’d never ever noticed and whistled at the Tardis. “You’re a beauty, ain’t ya? This is the Doctor’s alien plant/coral thing?”

Donna nodded, slowly closing the drawer so as not to startle the guinea pig. “Tardis, it’s a Tardis. She’s going to be a ship eventually.”

Wilf laughed. “Cor, I don’t know about all that! She is pretty. Is she glowing?”

A wave of tickles ran through the back of Donna’s mind. It felt vaguely blue. She blinked as the whispers started again. She shook her head. “Gorgeous! Well, yeah, she glows a lot. S’not that bright just sort of lovely warm ambiance. Beats fluorescents.”

“Why does she glow?” he asked, reaching out to touch. Stopping short, he looked to her for permission. Donna nodded and he touched the surface. “Feels solid enough. Got a bit of warmth and give to it. Feels like touching rough bark.”

Donna felt weird as if she were hearing the color green. She glanced at the Tardis thoughtfully. Gramps was walking around the Tardis complimenting her. The sparkling feeling was back. Donna hmmed, “I think she likes you.”

“Yeah? That’s a first! Me, making friends with an alien plant! Hello,” he said to the Tardis.

Donna felt the impression of a greeting in her mind. “Oh wow. I think I can hear her.”

Wilf was thrilled. “What’s she saying?”

“I’ve never heard her before. The room just feels cold when she’s upset and comfortable when she’s happy… nothing more… A second ago, I was sure she just said hello to you.” Donna stepped forward to touch the coral. The warmth was there. “She feels normal. Are you talking to me?”

No response. Donna frowned. 

“You look like you swallowed a lemon. What did she do, insult you?” 

Shrugging, she walked away from the Tardis. “Nah, she doesn’t talk to me. The Doctor’s telepathic and Rose is bonded to him. Makes sense they would hear her. I’m just me. Normal. No magical add ons. The Doctor let me hear a telepathic song once. Maybe he could have let me hear her properly if he was here.”

“Or maybe she doesn’t talk like us,” Wilf remarked eying the coral.   
“How else would she talk?” Donna asked. “The old one, her mother I suppose, could translate any language in my head. In my head, isn’t that wizard? So much better than Loogle Translate here.” Donna reached for her tea as Wilf walked around the Tardis.

“Did the mother talk to you in words, then?” he asked.

Donna paused. “No. She got in my head and translated but I never heard her say anything to me.”

“Well, if the mother didn’t talk in words, maybe this baby here doesn’t talk in words either. You said she chills a room when she’s moody and warms it when she’s happy. ‘Course it would be grand if she chilled a room in this heat…” He patted her again.

“What are you getting at?”

“Maybe she’s an alien. Maybe she is talking to you and you’re not listening properly. Like she speaks French and you speak English. Isn’t that right, sweetheart? You speak alien and Donna, she doesn’t. Be patient with her.” 

Donna frowned. “I speak French. She doesn’t speak French.”

“Don’t be daft,” he teased. “Now, do you need anything else? I’ve left my team in charge down there and George he gets a bit generous with those new chips your doctor came up with. Can’t have the teams packing on the pounds in my absence, what will Jackie Tyler think?” Wilf walked away from the Tardis and whistled at the computers and projects half-finished. “He’s a real-life Tesla isn’t he?”

“Nah, I’m good. Thanks for tea.” 

Wilf gave her a little wave. Physical affection between them was happening slowly. Donna had hugged him once or twice. He had hugged her once. Donna sighed after him. She loved that old goat no matter what. Didn’t matter that he was a different version of her grandfather. She wondered if that was how Rose felt about her father and or her Doctor. Donna rejected the latter half of that sentence. This Doctor was the Doctor in every practical way. The only difference was the lack of weight on his shoulders. He left that behind for the other one. And yet… still out saving the world.

Donna ate lunch. It was 01:55. Work was boring without him.

“This is exactly why I’m in charge,” Rose said, waving at the soldiers.

Kate didn’t blink. She didn’t back down. It was frustrating. Two hours of her morning wasted trying to convince this woman that they needed to meet aliens with an open hand. The Doctor had mentioned that the Kate from the Prime Universe started off as a scientist and fell into UNIT. This Kate had come up the ranks following directly in her father’s footsteps. Rose wished the woman was more like the Kate the Doctor described. This one was inflexible at the best of times. Worst part was the Doctor found her adorable. 

“Just because you’re the Vitex Heiress, Agent Tyler doesn’t make you qualified for negotiations.” 

The Doctor’s eyebrows floated away. “Rose Tyler is the most qualified human on this beach, Kate,” he exclaimed. “She made friends with a Dalek once,” he added. “And you’ve seen her file and you’re just being contrary because of the natural need for humans to adhere to a hierarchy… sorry, carry on jockeying for position. I’m just going to nip down there and talk to the Silurians.”

“You will not until we have secured the perimeter,” Kate growled.

Rose sighed and called out, “Keep the humans from coming down to the beach. Set your weapons to stun. Fire on the Silurians if they exit the perimeter. No one kills anyone. I will personally knock the first person to unnecessarily fire a weapon on their arse. The Doctor and I will go meet and open negotiations.”

“I should…” Kate began.

“No you shouldn’t,” Rose interrupted. 

“I will need to clear it with the local government.”

“We don’t work for them.” Rose cut her off again.

Kate fell silent. “Fine.”

“If they kill us, then you can be in charge, alright?” Rose turned her back on Kate. She was facing the Doctor. His eyes were wide with surprise and amusement. “Come on you, you better negotiate like our lives depended on it,” she said as they walked down the beach to meet the Silurians, “I wouldn’t put it past Kate to take care of me with some friendly fire.”

“She likes me.” He protested.

“No, she doesn’t.”

He pouted. “She does!”

“She spent an hour in the meeting this morning trying to convince Pete that you should never be allowed in the field,” Rose explained, pinching the bridge of her nose. The Doctor fell silent. Rose regretted it as a wave of sadness hit her over the link. She relented and whispered, “she thinks you have too much information to be risked.” That wasn't what she said but it might have been what she meant. Kate had called him an 'annoying alien encyclopedia that was better left on the shelf.'

He brightened. “I am brilliant!” He caught her hand and swung their clasped hands. “Oi!” he shouted at the Silurians and switched to a language that sounded like a hissing version of Spanish.

The group paused. The leader, who had a lovely blue fin and big giant bulbous chickeny eyes stepped forward, blinking. He bowed. The Doctor bowed. Blue Fin lowered his gun and said something that sounded like a question. The Doctor gave a glib response.

“And now, we teach them UNO.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry for the delay. I am an adult with a job, a side hustle, and I'm prepping to go back to college because I hate my job. This week kicked me in the butt. Now back to fluff! Thanks for all the comments. I love them and you for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Negotiations go well. The date...

Donna glanced down at her phone as she slipped into her fancy date night dress. The screen lit up with a message from the Doctor: Rose taught them how to waterfall Draw 4s. I have 100 cards now.

Laughing, she responded: Negotiations going well?

They were but I’m all out of yellow cards. Tardis?

Donna glanced at the Tardis. The ambient glow was a romantic warm orange. The room felt comfortable, almost peaceful. “You alright?” she asked the coral. 

No response. No flickery lights or colors or sounds or anything. Donna shrugged and replied that she was fine. “You look fine. No frostiness… No weird colors. You want a scoop from one of those bags yet?” 

No response.

“This relationship is so one-sided,” she told the Tardis before zipping up her dress. It was a dark blue number with a boat neck. It came to midcalf and had a lovely split. She’d purchased it on her last shopping trip with Rose. It hugged her in all the right places and the slit made it easy to run. Everyone who knew the Doctor well eventually ended up running. It was good exercise. She’d also taken up the membership at the Torchwood gym for the same reason. Sooner or later when that Tardis was ready, Donna was going to need to keep up. Bonus, her calves looked amazing! She stepped into a comfortable strappy pair of gold sandals and found that her grandad had packed matching jewelry. 

Donna has just enough time to slap on some extra makeup and hide her work clothes before she had to go down to let Harry in. She opened the door with her keycard to see him standing there. Dressed in a deep wine color cashmere sweater, dark trousers, and light oxford, Harry was looking fine. Donna resisted the urge to fan herself. She was going to play this cool. “H-h-hi.” Brilliant. Well done, Donna.

“Hello there Donna, you look gorgeous.” Harry beamed.

Donna made a few inarticulate noises and waved her hand around a bit aimlessly before patting his very solid, very warm chest. “Won’t you come in?”

“Said the spider to the fly,” he quipped, stepping into the hall. 

“No spiders, nope, no thank you, not this time…” She led him to the lift, typing in the complicated code, tapping it with her card, and opening her eye for the retinal scanner. 

Harry whistled. “What’s he got up there anyhow? My office only has the keycard.”

“Junk mostly,” Donna told him, stepping into the lift. It didn’t always work since the Doctor discouraged visitors who weren’t Rose. Donna often had to climb the stairs. She guessed he had left it working as a favor to her and now she was grateful to be in the tiny service lift, practically up against Harry who, she noticed, was really filling out his sweater.

“I don’t believe that at all. I confess I’m a little nervous. It’s not unlike him to boobytrap his stuff,” Harry confided leaning close enough for her to smell his manly spicy cologne. It almost distracted her from his ridiculous sentence...Almost.

“What?” 

“He’s wrecked three of our weapon development projects with peanut butter.”

Donna bit back a laugh. “That’s guns. The Doctor doesn’t like guns.”

“That’s not all he’s sabotaged… He’s more than capable of it.” 

Sometimes Donna forgot that the old guard Torchwood scientists and even some of the new UNIT scientists didn’t appreciate the Doctor’s desire to create a less violent UNIT/World. The Doctor seemed to have made friends everywhere he went in their original universe. He’d even made friends with pets and babies and aliens of all sorts. Here he… still made friends just as easily outside of work. Inside of work, it was a slow uphill climb. “You just need to get to know him,” Donna said, wondering if Spaceman would end up being more or less annoying to Harry after a day together. 

“I’ll pass. Think I’ll still keep my eyes peeled,” Harry insisted. 

“Nah, he’d never do that in his office. He knows I’d kill him if I got zapped or covered in something or locked out. He’s not that brave. He got purple goo in my flat once and mopped it up himself...”

“You are very brave then,” Harry praised. 

Donna smirked. “It’s just a lab. Bit of books, large plant, computers, and techie geek debris.” Donna gave him a true smile that brightened when he returned it. “Here we are!”

“He’s a bit mad though, isn’t he?” Harry asked.

“Yeah, he is.” 

The lift doors opened. Harry watched as she entered her passcode. It changed daily and there was some math involved. No point in hiding it from him. The door opened and the scent of tea and the earthy scent of growing Tardis floated out. Donna closed the door behind Harry. 

“Look at this place.” He spun taking it all in. “Can I have a poke around? The guys are never going to believe I was actually up here! Bit normal, isn’t it? Hardwood floors and brown leather chairs...”

“They’re comfortable…” Donna protested. Everything in here gleamed after her afternoon clear up. Harry was trying to log on to his computer. It beeped angrily at him. The Doctor had locked it down. It was safe enough. “Yeah, sure, poke away.” Donna leaned against the small table and may or may not have gotten a good look at the bum when he bypassed the table full of cultures, tinctures, and potions to face the Tardis. 

Harry made a lot of noise about science-y things. Donna heard the whispers in the other room which was impossible since there was no other room up here. She stuck a finger in her ear to see if it was ringing. No… As Harry got closer to the Tardis the whispering got louder but she still couldn’t make out the words. “Not now,” she muttered.

Harry took a loop around the coral, wondering aloud about her. He even reached out to touch her. “How does it exist out of water? Without Phytoplankton and Zooplankton, it should starve. And how is it glowing? Is this a mock coral? What looks like coral?”

The whispering felt like a scream inside her head as Harry’s fingers neared the surface. “Ah, I wouldn’t,” Donna cautioned. She felt compelled to say it, the words jumping out of her as the room temperature nosedived. “Oil on your hands could damage her,” she lied.

Harry pulled his hand back and the temperature rose. “Her? It’s an insane experiment, right? Bioluminescent land coral? Wow. Is it terrestrial?” 

“Oh, it’s just… a plant. One of the Doctor’s um, failures.” Donna reached out and grabbed his arm, leading him away from the Tardis. “Come on, let’s order.”

Harry let himself be pulled away. His eyes lingered on the Tardis. Donna did her best to distract him, tossing a large blanket onto the hardwood floor. Taking the hint he sat down. Donna held up the menu. “Figured a picnic makes it a bit romantic.”

“Yeah, it is. We’ve got a glowing coral for ambiance. Smells a bit like a park. It’s the most romantic place I’ve been in ages and it’s a mad scientist’s lab. Your Doctor’s a bit like Dr, Frankenstein.”

Donna frowned. “No, he isn’t…”

“How about you? Pretty woman like you, bet you’re beating off the men with a stick.”

Pleased, and really wanting this to be a nice time, Donna shrugged telling him with a sunny smile, “Yeah, keep a club in my bag for emergencies.” 

The Doctor was deep in negotiations with Harla, the Silurian with the large attractive blue fin. She was their Captain. His captain, Captain Kate had joined them with maps and the universal translator. The Doctor sonicked it a few times to get it to absorb the language faster. He kept tweaking it and the boys in R&D kept undoing his upgrades. He told Kate to keep this one for herself in future before rolling the map out and catching Kate up.

“Harla says this family group only numbers four hundred. We could easily absorb them. Their needs are a bit different than ours. I’ve marked several areas that are uninhabitable by us but could be made habitable for Siluruans with minimal fuss.” A cheer went up as one of the squaddies won the latest round of UNO. Several Silurians surrounded him, handing him small tokens. So, the betting had begun. He grinned. Rose grabbed the decks and shuffled, calling out a countdown in English before asking for Silurian numbers. All the humans started chanting Silurian numbers 5-0.

The guns had been left on a table behind them. The Doctor had ordered food from the festival and was waiting for it to arrive. After the initial bowing and introductions, Rose and he had begun making a good impression on the Silurians. They had been friendly and willing to bargain. Their ship had exited hibernation mode because of damage. They needed a new home pronto. It made them more disposed toward peace. Rose had charmed the guns out of their fins. Now it was down to brass tacks. They had pounded out a basic treaty and all they needed to do was get the humans on board.

He had hoped to get to the festival or at least get another round of UNO in but Rose had won the coin toss. She got to charm the Silurians. He got to bully the humans into signing. He had a feeling she was doing it because he got along with Kate better than she did. Well, not right now but normally he did. 

“And how are we going to talk the individual governments into agreeing to give up sizable chunks of their empires?”

“With trade,” Harla said, waiting for the translator. “We can make the land viable. Not only the land we need but other areas for the humans to use. Also, we have renewable energy sources. I cannot help but note that Earth is hotter than it should be.”

“We had a collision with the multiverse.”

“Ah,” Harla said eagerly, “My sister is interested in multiverse theory. I will introduce you!”

“I look forward to it!” The Doctor beamed. This was so much better than killing one another. And the Silurians seemed to like him almost immediately which was not always the case in any universe. 

“We also have medicines and technology. We would be good neighbors.” 

“I don’t think the Americans will go for it. And no offense, Harla, but we’ve been living here for the last several thousand years. It’s our planet now. I’m afraid that’s how the other humans will see it.” Kate said. “We could maybe get Ireland to agree…”

“That’s the spirit, Captain Kate! Let’s choose multiple habitation sites. We can hammer out the details with the foreign governments later. We can do a presentation! I love a good presentation! ROSE!”

Rose handed her cards to a young Silurian. She wandered over. “I’ve created monsters. They’re betting dinners out and teaching each other bawdy songs now. I don’t even know what half those curses mean but there’s one about a dinosaur’s d--”

“Agent Tyler,” Kate growled.

“Yeah, sorry,” she said beaming and if her little tongue-touched smile was any indication, Rose Tyler was anything but sorry. “What’s up?”

“PR. We need PR for the Silurians,” Kate told her. “We want to show what they can do for us and show them in the best possible light.”

“Oooh, a presentation,” Rose cooed. 

The Doctor snorted.

“Yep. Pete Tyler can lend us his firm. In the meantime, can we see your ship?” Rose asked.

Harla bowed. “A tour can be arranged...if…”

“If?”

“Someone teaches me the game,” Harla said, opening her clawed hands. “I’ve a few young who would love a new game.”

Rose took Harla’s hand, pulling her to her feet. “Come on, I can explain the rules to you in a second.”

“They’re going to name a city after you,” he muttered.

Rose winked. “It’s Tyler. T-Y-L-E-R.”

“Yeah alright, that’s enough,” he grumbled. He felt her mind glow with mirth. She was happy. He was happy. This was fun!

“Do you want to get right to the cultural exchanges? We’ve got a karaoke machine… Do you have music? I’d love to hear some Silurian music.”

The domestic approach was the Doctor’s favorite approach. He stood up and stretched. “Did anyone order plov? I love plov.”

Harla and Rose disappeared into the group. Rose leaning in to ask Harla a few questions. The Doctor was held back by Kate. “Do we know they are who and what they say they are?”

“I haven’t seen or sensed any ill intent. Their guns are down. They’re offering to trade. Sure peace is a risk but isn’t that the risk we’d like to take first? Come on or we’ll never get to sing.” He led her into the crowd. 

Donna was half in love. Harry regaled her with stories about his university days. He listened to her travel stories-edited to exclude wrong universe information of course-and he laughed easily. He wasn’t too hard on the eyes either. Fairly liberal with the compliments, Harry was a charmer. 

One problem: He hated the Doctor with a capital, ‘H.’ 

The conversation kept drifting to him and then the comments would start. Any good remark she made, he would dismiss. Conversation flowed when he wasn’t mentioned. They had loads in common. The lobster was mostly shells between them. The dessert was open and being shared. Donna was doing her best to ignore Harry’s prejudice. The Tardis was too. She had made her glow a bit pinker and the scent of roses drifted through the air. 

Harry stretched, eying her empty desk. The Doctor’s notebook sitting there and a pen. “You don’t even have anything to file. Isn’t that what you do?”

“Yeah among other things…” Donna said with a huff. Why couldn’t he let it go?

“Can’t believe he’s making you stay here overnight, with no work at all. That’s so wrong! He’s not got the right, Donna. You should complain to Pete Tyler. Bet he could reassign you to another department,” Harry said. 

He roamed over to the Petri dishes. Donna was starting to wonder if the lab was more of a draw then her lovely self. Or if he was just stretching his legs? She considered shooing him away from the table where Rose’s brush and Tony’s comb were still visible. 

“Nah, it’s fine. He and Rose had to go into the field. He would never have asked otherwise,” Donna replied, taking another bite of the triple chocolate cake. “He has several sensitive experiments going on that need watching and he trusts me. Now, what were you saying about Oxford?”

“Oh, only that I met Pete Tyler there. He recruited me. Donna, nothing’s running right now, he could have let you off for our date. Instead, he kept you here.” Harry continued to wander around. “Are any of these even running?” He tapped a keyboard. Gallifreyan script lit up. The circles that looked like a planet with rings eating a smaller planet and a line off to the left floated around the center. “What’s this mean?”

“No,” Donna told him. 

“You won’t tell me?” he asked.

“No, it means ‘no’ that means ‘no’ on screen there. Harry, can we go back to our date and stop talking about the Doctor, please,” Donna asked., annoyance flaring.  
“Yeah, sure, sorry. I bet you’d rather never talk about the bastard…” Harry muttered.

Oh, that was really enough.

“Bastard?” Donna’s hackles rose. “No, I’d rather talk to you about you and me and our date, not the Doctor but now that you mention him, AGAIN... I might add that he is my friend, my best friend. He and Rose have been very good to me. Saved my life. I work WITH him because I want to and he’s brilliant!”

“You’re not serious…” Harry’s expression soured. “He’s a knob, Donna. He’s always ruining our research projects. He keeps undoing all of our work on the Universal Translator. I’m convinced he stole one of our lab animals…”

Donna’s eyes cut to the drawer where she knew for a fact a guinea pig was hiding. 

“He comes in, looks everything over and sneers at us, at our efforts…” Harry said. “And he’s not here so you don’t have to pretend to like him for me.”

“Yeah well, I’m not pretending. The Doctor is one of the best people I’ve ever met.” 

Harry walked around touching everything, pulling on locked drawer handles, trying to root around. Donna stood up. He tried to log into two more of the computers. “What do you think you are doing?”

“Trying to find proof of his brilliance.” He put “brilliance” in air quotes. I bet Greg and Sanjay that the Doctor isn’t working on anything at all up here and it looks like they owe me ten quid each. He’s all talk that one, just because he’s dating the boss’ daughter.” 

Donna bristled. “Her name is Rose…”

“I know. People like her.” Harry turned to stare at the Tardis coral. “I could take a bit of this with me though… I love the glow. Come on Donna, help me get a cutting, he won’t mind.”

Whispering exploded into existence all around Donna. A light wind drifted through the room as if the AC had been turned on. One of the computers beeped and a ream of paper poured out of the modified dot matrix printer. Harry rushed to grab a sheet. Donna intercepted him. She snatched up the test results. “Stop it, Harry!”

“Donna,” he reached for the papers. Donna pulled open a drawer, tossed the results in, and closed it. It locked. “You brought me up here to the dragon’s den. You had to expect a little professional rivalry…”

“Silly me, I was expecting you to want to spend time with me.” 

Donna crossed her arms as Harry came close enough to rub her arms. “Come on, I was only playing around. I would never take a cutting off one of his plants…”

“I think you should go.” Donna heard the whispering again. “Yeah. Go now.”  
Harry laughed. “Donna! We were having a nice time.”

“We were.” she agreed. “Shame you had to ruin it by insulting my friends and threatening my...coral...plant thing. Oh, get out! And don’t bother talking to me again, alright?”

He argued. He pleaded. Donna felt the room grow icy. She glared until he retreated. She opened the elevator for him but left him there on his own. She slammed the lab closed behind her. A powerful feeling of warmth washed through her. Donna walked over to the Tardis and sat down leaning against her.

Images flickered around the edges of her vision. She saw herself taking a scoop from the bag the Doctor had indicated and giving it to the Tardis. She saw a flash of her eating the rest of the cake. She saw the Doctor slipping a skinnier, sicker version of the guinea pig in the drawer into his pocket, and whistling as he snuck it out of a lab. Sparkling rainbows tickled the edges of her mind.

“You can talk! Gramps was right! You talk in pictures and emotions and colors and stuff!” She hopped up to get the scoop of Tardis goop for her. “Oh, that is brilliant! Should I talk to you in stuff too? Or are words good? How does it work?”

She poured the scoop of Tardis goop into the substrate before grabbing the leftover cake. “What if I said this cake is good?”

No response.

“What if I--?” Donna focused on the rich intense dark chocolate flavor. The Tardis responded with the taste of tea. “You’re right, do want tea--Oh, you are a genius! Almost makes up for…” She glanced over at the ruined picnic. A wave of sadness went through her, echoed by the Tardis and another hint of tea. “Yeah, alright. Let’s have tea and a bit of a sleepover.”

A pillow materialized on the Doctor’s little table.

“Brilliant! What do we need stupid dates for anyhow, am I right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What should we name that guinea pig? Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mission ends and the Doctor tries to bribe Kate to become his friend.

Rose Tyler surveyed the party she had created. Well, the Doctor helped. The local government had come down when the bonfires were lit. At first, they had been nervous at the sight of dinosaur style people but the Doctor had eased them into the karaoke line, offering everyone refreshments and introducing everyone as if it was a particularly strange Vitex party. The scent of roasting marshmallows filled the air. The Doctor had produced a bag from his pocket and quickly introduced Silurians to s’mores.

He appeared out of the crowd with a stick full of toasted ones. “Hello!”

“Hi, Pete’s on his way. Kate called him to update him.” Rose reached out and plucked a marshmallow off the top. “Shame Donna’s missing this. It’s not every day we meet a new species and decide to throw a kegger instead of shoot one another.”

“The Fox People of Delta Apple 7 when contacted by the Cat People, threw a party that lasted a fortnight. Trade began immediately after. They had a saying, “Strangers are friends you haven’t met yet.”

“Wasn’t that Yeats?” Rose arched a brow.

“Yeah well, there are no truly new ideas. Still,” he beamed, “they were friends for several hundred years. Think we can beat that?” He tilted the stick and used his teeth to pull all the remaining marshmallows off, stuffing his face. 

“If we can get the humans to agree to let the Silurians live next door to them, I don’t see why not. And as long as the Silurians aren’t secretly planning to turn on us…” Rose shrugged. “Hard to think they would when you hear their music.”

Pete appeared a few paces away. “There’s Dad, he must have used the hopper. C’mon, let’s get to him first.” Rose grabbed for the Doctor’s hot hand, sticky with sugar. 

“Rose!” Pete called as his personal detail appeared behind him. “Report?”

“Hiya Pete! We started a party!” The Doctor pulled ahead to shake hands, thinking better of it. “Covered in marshmallow,” he said by way of apology. 

“I can see that, and that. First contact go well then?” Pete asked as he waved to Jake to lower his gun. 

“Yeah, they’re a species native to Earth,” Rose told him. “They were hibernating after the last ice age forced them underground. They’re only up now because their ship got damaged. They want to move back to the surface. They’re willing to trade.”

The Doctor nodded. “They’ve got technology light years ahead of what you have. Renewable energy sources as well as medicinal plants that have been extinct for several thousand years.”

Pete nodded. “They’re earthlings. Well, can’t say that’s going to win anyone over. I’ll make some calls. We’re going to need to keep them contained and under wraps until we’re sure we can trust them. And we’re going to need the right angle to make this work with the public. I’d like to meet their leaders.”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Rose agreed. “But Dad, this is their planet too. They have as much right to be here as we do. Well, you do, the Doctor and I snuck in.”

“It’s not that. I’m worried that our people might feel threatened. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Us or them.” Pete watched as Lesna belted out the lyrics to a drinking song while Mark from Kate’s team echoed him. A few others had started to join in. “But what I’m seeing here is… What am I seeing here?”

“The domestic approach,” the Doctor remarked. “We treated them like friends.”

“Right, introduce me to your new friends.”

Rose shouted for Harla.

Kate Stewart sat on a rock near the shore watching the ship anchored in the choppy waters of the Caspian Sea. A shadow crept up behind her smelling vaguely of fresh tea. A mug appeared in her peripheral vision. She accepted it. The night had grown colder and she was a bit far from the fire. The Doctor sat down beside her. “I’m not as naive as you and the squaddies think I am.”

“You just handed an alien species the key to Earth,” Kate replied, sipping at the tea. It was the perfect temperature for drinking. He had added a splash of milk and skipped the sugar. “You and Agent Tyler just waltzed in and gave them everything they wanted. It’s incredibly naive.”

The thin man sighed. “Yeah, when you put it that way it does sound a bit naive.” He ruffled his hair and scratched at his day-old scruff. “Ah well, you’ll be there to murder them all if they get out of line…”

A flash of anger rushed through her, warming her more than the tea. “You are infuriating.”

“I am yeah, I am,” he agreed affably. “Exactly why am I infuriating now?”

“My job is to protect us from aliens. And at every turn there you are. You may as well be stuffing flowers into our guns and singing peace songs to every single species that pop by.” Before he could cut in and tell her that was a nice idea, she pushed on, “Not every species we run into is friendly. There have been many monsters who have murdered members of my team. There was a mist that turned one of my men into a skeleton in seconds. And you and Agent Tyler waltzing in with your cards is dangerous. Not to mention ridiculous.” 

The Doctor leaned back on his hands. “The universe can be a real bastard. But isn’t it better to make allies? We can’t go out there,” he pointed up to the sky, “with a reputation for murder.”

“You sound just like my father,” she grumbled. “He held back. He negotiated. He was killed by the Cybermen while trying to negotiate with them.”

The tall thin hybrid grimaced. His smirky little smile slipped off his face and he eyed her with serious eyes that seemed to bore into her soul. “I’m sorry. He was a good man, your dad.” Kate felt like there were lifetimes in his eyes. He blinked and the smirk reappeared. “Yeah, maybe I am reckless. On the bright side, one of my risks might get me killed, and then you can go avenge me. Give you a chance to use your guns.”

“I don’t want to kill aliens. I just want to keep everyone from this planet safe.”

“Good thing those people out there are from this planet. C’mon Kate, can’t we coexist?” he asked and produced a piece of chocolate cake. “Promise to call you captain…”

“Yeah alright,” Kate said, accepting the cake. “I still don’t think you should be in the field and don’t want to be friends.”

He rolled his eyes. Against his will, a jaw cracking yawn escaped him. He sniffed in annoyance, stretching out his long legs. “I’d make a good friend. I always have tea.”

“I don’t care.” Kate sipped her tea.

Rose appeared. Kate nodded to her. She was surprised she saw the Doctor for more than a minute without Pete Tyler's heir apparent turning up. The rumor mill said she was from another dimension. The same mill that said the Doctor wasn’t completely human. Kate knew that was true. The lanky Doctor was much stronger than his frame suggested. He also had passed the physical fitness field tests with ease, exceeding the numbers of fitter, younger men. His and Rose’s affinity for nonterrestrial species made sense if that were true. Kate could connect the dots. 

“Ready to pack it in,” Rose asked the Doctor. “Donna might want to go home.”

The mysterious Donna Noble who turned up one day at work with the highest clearance possible. Kate wondered what was so special about the loud redhead. She was inextricably linked to these two and there were wagers on the true nature of their relationship. Was she an alien? Was she from an alternate dimension? Her background check had turned up some interesting red flags. The personality described by colleagues in her previous positions seemed to describe a completely different person...an almost evil twin. 

“Jus’ trying to convince the Captain here that we’re on the same side.” Sitting up, his eyes softened as he took in Rose. Kate thought she looked tired. That was fair, Kate was exhausted. They had been here since early afternoon and it was now well after midnight. 

“How’s he doing?” Rose asked, dark brow arched.

“Fair to middling effort,” Kate admitted. “He brought me tea.”

“He does that.”

The Doctor stood up, stretching. “To be continued.”

The happy couple vanished, their hoppers the last thing visible. Kate went back to staring at the Silurian ship. “You better be right, Doctor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This one is almost over! (Don't worry there's love in Donna's future.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone gets back to the Tardis.

The Doctor slipped into his lab. The familiar scent of Tardis, his lab, traces of Donna’s perfume, and a seafood dinner hit him. He smiled, relaxing into the familiar atmosphere. The Tardis hum was happy and growing cheerier as he approached her. Soft pinky-orange light glowed from each tendril looping around the roof and stretching out and down into the substrate. There, leaning against the large multidimensional being was Donna Noble. She looked like a burrito wrapped in one of the fleece blankets from his drawer, her red hair, and the top of her face peeping out. A rush of affection for his best friend went through him. “Aw, that’s…” He put a finger over his own lips to shush himself. Adorable, he thought. 

Quick mental check-in with the Tardis confirmed that she was doing as well as she looked. His eyes took in the picnic blanket, the lobster remains, and a slice of chocolate cake left...unattended. He cleared up the picnic, shaking the blanket out and folding it into a bit of a cushion against the hardwood floor. He put it next to her before checking on his Secret Guinea Pig. Eventually, he’d have to come clean to Rose about how he had popped the animal into his pocket for safekeeping. Not tonight. He pulled a bag of Timothy hay out of his pocket and topped the little one up for the night. Her water bottle had been filled. Oops! Had Donna found his Secret Guinea Pig? A soft wheek reminded him to add some cucumbers and an apple slice while he was feeding. He did and ran a hand down the cavy’s fur. It was still too much like a bottle brush. “You need more vitamin C, friend,” he murmured, pulling drops from his other pocket to add to the water.

Once the drawer was shut, he dropped down next to Donna on the blanket. Leaning back against the coral, he let out a yawn. There were a lot of benefits to having this hybrid body, the hormones were good and bad, the ability to stay with Rose was top notch, the need to sleep every night was just...rubbish. Donna shifted. He grimaced. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Donna sat up. “Spaceman,” she murmured, possibly still half asleep. “Make friends?”

“Yeah, you’ll like them. Remember the Silurians we met before? The ones from underground?” he asked. He reached out and snagged the piece of cake from earlier. He stuck a fork in it and brought the chocolate up for a sniff. 

“Didn’t one of our people marry one of their people?” Donna asked, stretching. She arched a brow at him.

The Doctor nodded. “Yep. True love!” He ate the chocolate cake. “Mmm. These were different ones… undersea Silurians. Friendly! Rose did her UNO trick. We did some karaoke, banged out a temporary treaty, and made Pete agree to it. How was your date?” He asked, drawing the last sentence out like taffy. 

Donna did not gush. Uh oh. She didn’t smirk like he did when Rose had done that thing she does with her tongue. Huh. She also didn’t make that face Rose made after he kissed her for the first time. Her heart rate didn’t elevate at the question. Her pupils remained the same in the pink night light that was the Tardis. She flipped her hair off her shoulders. “Not good?”

“S’fine, found out that Harry isn’t Mr. Right for me,” she murmured her expression flat and sad.

“Oh, well, I never thought he was,” he chirruped. “Ow! You elbowed me!” 

“You were being rude!” Donna huffed. “I need a woman to talk to, where’s Rose?” And to add insult to injury-actual injury, he was going to bruise!-she hunted the small, obviously empty lab for his mate. 

“Her mother called on the way up. She’s staying the night at the mansion. Tony was refusing to sleep. Something about Tony’s imaginary friend... S’fine. She’s fine. Tony’s a bright imaginative boy. Jackie’s...Jackie.” He shrugged it off. Rose would call if she needed him. He had kept the hopper in his pocket just in case… And because he wanted to improve it later. “I wanted to be here with the Tardis! And you! Unless… Do you want to go home? It’s late,” the Doctor murmured. Rose had reminded him that not everyone would enjoy spending the night on a hard floor in a lab just to keep the Tardis company. Honestly, he couldn’t understand that. No one had homegrown a Tardis in his living memory. It was a great honor to watch it happen. He did understand that Donna had had a disappointing evening and he was willing to overlook her lack of interest in this case... 

“I can...I can be the woman you talk to if you want?” the Doctor offered.

“You’re a fair woman,” Donna admitted, lifting his arm up and around her.

The Doctor pulled her in for a side hug. “Aw, thanks, I think,” she didn’t normally want him to hug her. Now that they were closer she was leaking melancholy, “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, it’s just getting back out there is hard. I loved Lance and he wanted to sacrifice me to a giant spider. Lee was imaginary and Harry seemed more interested in what a plum you were than what a catch I was.”

The Doctor squeezed her. “Aw, that didn’t turn out so bad. That’s how we met! I wouldn’t exist without Lance. Imagine if Jack touched the jar...” He affected a delicate shudder to cheer her up.

Donna snorted. “Rose might have enjoyed that.”

“Oh.” he tugged on his ear with a free hand, trying to distract himself from *that* idea. “I don’t know. I don’t think I could handle 51st Century hormones. Rose would never walk straight…” And then dove straight into the good parts of *that* idea. He smirked.

Donna shoved him away, playfully. “No, no, no, no!”

Laughing, he pulled her back in. Nothing grossed Donna out more than the idea of him naked. She really was a lot like his brother Brax, except she liked him. He smiled. “We’ll find the right person for you. And they won’t be from that cut-rate Research & Development Department.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Donna said with a sigh, “I’m not getting any younger over here.”

The Doctor arched a brow. “You’re in the prime of your life! You’re all lovely with your ginger hair! And you’re brilliant!” Donna made a pleased noise. “You are! You did a great job keeping an eye on the Tardis too! She’s literally glowing with health! Look at her! Glowing like anything!” He glanced up at the Tardis.

“I can hear her,” Donna remarked.

“What?” What?

“I. Can. Hear. Her.” Donna bit out each word with growing enthusiasm, eyes lighting up.

“What?” His magnificent brain would not process the information and he could process thousands of thoughts in a millisecond. Not possible. Donna had no telepathic abilities and the Tardis was too young to push past a human’s natural barriers...wasn’t she?

“Oh yes,” she enthused. “I was hearing whispers. I was getting colors and noises. I just didn’t know that it was her! I figured it out. And now we are talking! She even materialized this pillow!”

“Nooooo,” he snatched the pillow from her hands. “It’s solid! Why is it solid? How is it solid?” he asked the Tardis. Her answer was an impression of a sleeping Donna. “She’s making things! She is making you things! Wow. Wow. Fluffy too!” 

“Give it back.”

Frowning, he handed the pillow back. It was soft like the pillows on his bed. He turned his internal puppy dog eyes on the Tardis. No pillow materialized. Huffing, he turned back to Donna. “She likes you better than me,” he complained.

“Course she does, I’m brilliant,” Donna teased, fluffing her soft pillow.

“Whispering?” he asked to confirm. Donna nodded. He thought about that. “Not words?”

“No, it is her, isn’t it? I’m not a radio now?” Donna asked.

The Doctor thought about it. He listened but there were no whispers. He shrugged. “She could be ambient translating… The whispers could be birds or squirrels near you or Zygons? Sounds like her translation matrices are maturing. She’s ahead of schedule. You precious, precocious darling!” He beamed pride at the Tardis. 

A pillow materialized in his arms. Shocked, he squished it. “Brilliant!!”

A yawn escaped Donna. “All of this is lovely Doctor but can it wait until morning?”

“Going to stay then?” The Doctor asked, perking up.

“Yeah, can’t go home and face Wilf asking me about my date just now.” The Doctor gave her a quick hug. She sighed. “Your test results are locked in my desk drawer. Don’t suppose you have a toothbrush on you?”

The Doctor pulled a pair of toothbrushes from his pocket. “Venusian spearmint.” He got up to open the drawer and grab the results. “Oh good, it’s the DNA results!”

Rose took the car over to the mansion. Mum had sounded concerned. Pulling into the large drive, Rose bit back a yawn. Tony should be in bed. Rose should be in bed...or at least cuddled up with the Doctor under the Tardis. She parked, hopped out, taking the time to stretch. She smelled like a bonfire. Shrugging out of her jacket, she left it in the car.

Jackie Tyler pulled the door open before Rose could grab the handle. She was dressed in pink-striped pajamas, her hair up, and little bits of a blue face mask around her nose. Rose grinned. Jackie shouted, “Rose, sweetheart! You look exhausted!” She threw herself into Rose’s arms. “And oof! You smell like you’ve been camping! Why do you smell like you went camping? Where were you then?”

“Didn’t Pete tell ya? We were in Baku. We made first contact with a new species.” Rose stepped inside. “What’s wrong with Tony?”

“What’s a Baku? Come in and have a cuppa,” Jackie insisted, dragging her to the island. She flipped the kettle on and doled out mugs. “He’s not sleeping tonight. Keeps saying he can hear talking in his room.” Jackie added a plate of biscuits to the island along with the sugar pot and the milk. “I offered to let him come and sleep with mum and dad but he says the voice says it needs help.”

“Mum, did you hear anything when you were in his room?” Rose’s hackles rose. Tony was a fanciful kid. She and the Doctor both had filled his head full of grand adventures. There was a solid chance that was the cause of him imagining voices. But he was also a Tyler and weird things happened around Tylers. The Doctor would say it was their genetic disposition towards jeopardy. As if he weren’t the original jeopardy magnet.

“I tore the room apart, Rose! There’s nothing in there but Tony. I told him he was all right, there was nothing wrong. He burst into tears. He says someone in his room needs help and that you and the Doctor always tell him that if someone needs help, you help them and I can’t shout at him for that, Rose. I won’t discourage him from being a little helper. He’s a good boy, my son. You know he is. And I thought if you bleeped or buzzed the room with the Doctor’s sonic that he’d believe you and settle down.” Jackie poured the hot water into the mugs. “Did you bring it?”

Rose pulled the Doctor’s spare sonic out of her jacket. He liked to carry the one he’d had when she met him, the one with the blue light. But he had stolen a few. Rose was partial to the one his Eighth self had carried. It had a strange ring at the top that enclosed a red piece shaped like a bullet. The body of the sonic fit well in her hand. It was silver with a lovely gold ring around the middle. “Yeah.”

“What’s that?”

Rose flipped it. “The Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver…”

“No, it isn’t… It looks nothing-”

“Mum, it’s an older model. I like it. Works the same.” Rose flicked it on so Jackie could hear the familiar hum. Rose grabbed her mug of tea. “Let’s get Tony settled.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She drank her hot tea like it was a mug of bourbon, slamming the mug down. “Come on.”

Upstairs, she found her brother talking to a blank wall. “Yeah, Mummy sent for my big sister. She’ll believe us. Mummy can’t hear you. I know! I don’t know why.” His tiny hands up against the white wall. Rose stepped inside. “Hi there Tyler Tot.”

“Rose! Can you get my friend out of the wall?” He got up and cannonballed into her legs. Exhausted from her long day, Rose would have tumbled backward if she wasn’t used to the Doctor making almost the exact same move. “Whoa there Tiger! Tell me what’s happening?”

“He’s in the wall! He’s trapped!” Tony let go of her and went back to the wall. 

“Reckon you should get to bleeping with that thing,” Jackie said, pointing at the sonic. “Tell me if my baby boy is right.”

“Mum! You’ll hurt his feelings.” Tony protested.

Rose scanned the wall. It was hard to explain how this one worked. It didn’t have a read out exactly. It connected to you psychically relaying information. Rose felt a small life force behind the wall. She approached, scanning again. There was a single heartbeat behind the wall. “Hello?” she asked the wall.

“Hello?” a voice echoed. “Out please!”

Rose’s eyes widened.

Normal, normal, normal...hm? The Doctor flipped back a few sheets. Donna was snoring next to him. Tony’s readouts were mostly normal...except… “Oh, that’s interesting! Tony’s like Rose! He’s a bit telepathic! How? Jackie wasn’t. Pete had never shown any telepathic indicators. Their gene combination must be it. Oh, if Tony said he was hearing voices…

The Doctor pulled out his phone. It rang. He arched a brow and answered. “Rose?”

“There’s something in the wall and it’s talking.” Well, that cut straight to the heart of things. 

“I told you, Mummy!” Tony’s voice piped in the background. The Doctor liked to have his theories proven in real-time but not at the expense of his family. There was something in the wall! His anxiety spiked.

“Rose, Donna said she’s been hearing whispers. I think Tony is hearing them too! It’s the Tardis. She’s started translating most languages into English. She isn’t limiting it to humans. The Tardis could be translating anything. There’s no telling what’s in the walls. I’ll come…”

“No, I’ve taken you away from the Tardis all day. She needs you. ‘Sides the sonic doesn’t say it’s big…” He huffed. Like that mattered if she needed him...

Rose held the mobile to her ear as she thumbed the sonic to a cutting setting. The Doctor huffed. She could tell he was upset. He didn’t like her taking any risks without him. Not because he didn’t trust her to handle it, he just never wanted to miss out on the fun. “Get behind Mum, Tony.”

“Oh like Jackie will protect him,” the Doctor muttered. In the background, Rose heard Donna telling him to shut up. She smirked, tuning them out long enough to finish cutting the hole. She gently pulled the piece of plasterboard loose, leaning it up against the wall. The hole was dark. Rose coaxed, “Come on out. No one’s going to hurt you.”

“Rose, what is it?” the Doctor asked anxiously.

Rose took a chance. She gently reached her hands into the hole. Tony broke free of Jackie. He bounded over and called out, “You can come out. My sister is a superhero.”

Rose flushed. “Tony! I’m really not.”

“Nonsense,” Jackie growled. “You are.”

“She is,” Tony insisted.

Slowly something in the wall shifted. “I can see you!” It enthused. Rose wished she had a torch. She didn’t know enough settings to get her sonic to glow yet. The Doctor was babbling away, something about suggestions and the various species a young Tardis was most likely to translate as the thing in the wall shifted again. “Here I am!”

A white paw grabbed onto the edge of the hole. 

“Is that-? What is that?” Jackie asked.

The Doctor had fallen silent. Rose reached a hand into the hole. “Here, let me help you out.”

“Rose, be careful,” the Doctor admonished.

“Yeah, I’m not the reckless one in this relationship,” she muttered as she felt soft fur. 

“Right, remind me again which one of us blasted themselves through multiple dimensions without a capsule because it sure as hell wasn’t me,” the Doctor retorted.

Rose gripped the fur and like a magician, she pulled an animal out of the wall. “Oh! It’s a cat! You’re a cat!”

The tuxedo cat squirmed. “Lemme go! I’m free!”

Rose handed the cat to Tony. “It’s a cat,” she said, laughing incredulously. “I can understand cats?”

The cat snuggled into Tony’s arms. “Thanks!” the cat exclaimed. “I was stuck!”

“It was a bloody cat!” Jackie swore. 

“Can I keep ‘im, mum?” Tony asked.

Jackie Tyler frowned. “Oh, I don’t know, sweetheart. What if he has fleas or something? He’s obviously a stray.”

“Please?”

“Oh, you have to give in, Mum.” Rose ruffled the tiny cat’s fur. “He’s a handsome man!” Rose snorted when the Doctor scoffed. “Hush you.” Deep down, she believed the Doctor was jealous of cats like the ginger tom Rose had complimented instead of him at the Olympics, and also annoyed because Rose constantly called him out for his own catlike behavior. “If not, we’ll have to take him,” she said just to hear the Doctor squirm.

“No, no, no, no, no, we have Reggie, Leah, and Ginger to think of!” the Doctor protested.

Ginger? 

The Doctor kept going, saying, “cats are notoriously bad with small mammals and--you’re just winding me up, aren’t you?”

Rose snort laughed. “Too easy.”

In the background of the call, she heard Donna complaining about trying to sleep with him going on and on. The two bickered back and forth. Rose was full of affection for the pair of them. “Rose, I have to go. I am supposed to be sitting still and making no noise so Donna can sleep. Are you coming back here tonight?” he asked wistfully.

“Yeah,” Rose bit back a yawn. “Crisis averted, yeah?”

“Yeah, well, no, you have a cat there now. That’s…” the Doctor trailed off as Donna started extolling on the virtue of cats. “Fine.”

“See you soon,” Rose said, ending the call and giving in to her need to yawn. “Right, now what?”

“He says his name is Kevin,” Tony said to their mother.

“What? Oh, Tony, no! Cat’s are named Mittens or Fancy or Mr. Whiskers, Kevin’s a human name,” Jackie protested, kneeling down to scratch under the kitten’s chin. He regarded her with large solemn green eyes. “How about Fancy Paws? Oreo? Checkers?”

“Mum,” Rose interrupted as the cat made a face. “He’s got a name. Can’t go changing names just because. Welcome to the family, Kev.”

“Rose, cats don’t talk or name themselves… Do they?” Jackie eyed the little kitten's shrewd face. “Oh, doesn’t he look clever, watching, and listening to every word! Alright, Tony, Kevin, into bed. Mummy is exhausted. Rose is half dead. We can work everything out in the morning.”

Jackie ushered Rose out of the bedroom and down the stairs. “Want to tell me why my little boy can understand cats? And you too? Why can my children hear cats?”

“Um,” Rose tore into her thumbnail. Why did she always get stuck with the complicated explanations?

Rose entered the lab, dead on her feet and carrying a plush sleeping bag big enough for two. The scent of growing Tardis relaxed her. The spicy scent of the Doctor was next and she wanted nothing more than to lie down. But she paused to regard the Doctor and Donna with heads on pillows propped up against the Tardis. Donna was wrapped in a blanket. The Doctor was sprawled on top of a different blanket. She pulled her mobile and snapped a few pictures. Neither noticed as one was snoring and the other drooling.

She unrolled her sleeping bag next to the Doctor. A pillow materialized on the bag, a plump marshmallow that was calling her name. Rose stripped off her jacket, kicked off her shoes, and joined them. Stretching out, Rose wasn’t surprised when the Doctor’s eyes cracked open and slivers of warm brown locked onto her. A smile lit up his face. Rose’s stomach swooped. 

“Hello,” he rasped.

“Hello,” Rose replied.

The Doctor moved down to the sleeping bag. He arranged her into the little spoon. Rose, nearly boneless with exhaustion didn’t resist. His sleepy warm mind was already sucking her down into dreamland. Rose resisted long enough to whisper, “I can understand cats.”

“The Tardis can understand cats,” he corrected his warm minty breath on her neck.

“Is that normal? Translating for cats?” she asked, slipping a hand behind herself and into his pocket to get one of his endless supply of toothbrushes. He slapped her hand away playfully. He tapped her nose a second later with the toothbrush. She grabbed it.

“Nah, she’s warming up. Cat language is easy peasy… I could talk to cats about ten seconds after I met one the first time I was here.”

“Because of your kindred spirits?”

“Nooooo,” he groaned.

“You are a giant cat after all,” she teased.

“No, no, no, how many times, Rose? Time Lords are not cats! They are not related to cats! They’re not even cat adjacent evolutionarily speaking.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Donna growled. “Cats are quiet.”

Rose giggled. 

The End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! There are two stories warring for the next part. So, expect another story soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Going to have a little fun with this one.


End file.
